Yeah, I'm trying to see how far I can go with only fast ships and one capital (Radiant). I could retreat and re-engage, but I'm trying to get the huge fights all in one shot on purpose.
To repeat before I discuss, not against the idea of having 0 CR ships cost 0 DP, but I’m just trying to think through if it’s necessary as is right now for your situation.
Though the retreat and re-engage feature treats it as just 1 battle as far as exp, salvage etc goes, doesn’t it? Just to be clear, I’m talking about how after you do a retreat in a battle you have two options, Re-engage or attempt to disengage (and if you killed enough before retreat, you get to cleanly disengage).
Anyways, I imagine the radiant has the most ppt - shouldn’t your other fast ships be able to retreat pretty quickly? I was imagining like you had some slow/average speed ships that needed to retreat, such as sunders or manticores or something. Fast ships should be able to retreat pretty reliably fast and allow for about as fast (or faster, depending on where it was before retreating) as allowing the ship to reach 0 cr and wait for it to explode.
Also, you could maybe achieve what you’re looking for by giving low CR ships Search and Destroy orders once they’re like ~35% CR. That should make them generally much more risky in behavior, maximizing both their impact on the battle and their chances of exploding! It’s like a tactical self destruct.